Hacker News Reader

Comment by Splines | Hacker News Reader

I'm not an on-demand-food customer because the economics don't make sense to me. I either bring leftovers from dinner to work (I just have extra from dinner and spend an extra minute packing it the night before) or snag something from my work's decent cafeteria. And yet, I still see food deliver signs at my work and see coworkers utilizing them.

What's the deal? ROI for food delivery seems ridiculously low in comparison to other options. I don't want to sound like a curmudgeon but it seems quite wasteful.

View on HN

It was a lifesaver for those times when it was 6pm and you didn't have dinner ready for your kids.

Also for me when it's 6:30pm, but my partner is too tired to cook and I can't deal with that day's chronic pain. I'll miss Spoonrocket - they had a much more interesting menu than Sprig ever did, and many of the meals were quite delicious and freshly made. In terms of cost, about the same as just plain delivery, with the bonus of getting food maybe a little bit faster :)

Do you need cooked dinner for kids every day? There are plenty of healthy meals which take 10 minutes to prepare and will do as a dinner.

It makes a lot more sense if you don't make dinner, which I think is pretty common. (The ROI on that life decision is also ridiculously low.)

> The ROI on that life decision is also ridiculously low.

How are you figuring the ROI? If you're not factoring in opportunity cost, then you're not even considering it as an investment.

I make well over $100/hr doing contracting work. I can get a good meal delivered for $15. I highly doubt I could cook a decent meal in 9 minutes, and that's assuming ingredients and training are free (time and cost-wise).

$100 pre-tax right?

Also, it may take 10 min but it won't require 10 minutes of unbound attention

On a personal note cooking dinner is just relaxing, it's good to get off the screen sometimes

> $100 pre-tax right?

Yes, but that's just a baseline. Even if you knock it down to $60, that doesn't change the overall result, especially when you consider the additional cost of groceries.

If you derive utility from cooking dinner, that's fine! I totally respect making individual choices which increase your utility. It's just the attitude that those of us who don't cook (and don't like cooking) are being economically irrational that annoys me.

I don't think there's much economic irrationality on display here - at least, on the short term. The ROI on those decisions is certainly an individualized calculation. However, I would wonder how healthful your options are when you resort to food delivery services. There's certainly not a lot of wiggle-room here because most humans require the same nutrients to be healthy and need to avoid the same ingredients to avoid being unhealthy.

Delivery food, even the "healthy" kind, is often packed with excessive amounts of sugars, salt, and artificial flavors. You're going to need to make a lot more than $100/hr pre-tax to afford the heart surgery, diabetes treatment, or other major health interventions that result from decades of eating food products prepared by people making about 10% of your base income.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com